The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (11 page)

"That must be from Barbara!" cried Lois Hoskins. "A country bib! Isn't it precious?"

"It is," said Laura, holding up the needlework for everyone to admire. "It's wonderful." Oddly enough, she meant it. Country didn't seem silly at all on baby things, she told herself.

Sarah Nevells thanked Laura profusely for the floral stationery. Her gift to her own prayer partner had been a note saying: "As your Christmas gift, I rescued a kitten from the Johnson City Animal Shelter. You may have it, or 1 will keep it for you, but it owes you its life. "

"I wish I'd thought of doing that," said Laura wistfully. It was just what Donna Reed would have given a prayer partner.

"Well, Anne Louise, you didn't get a present!" Barbara Givens remarked, seeing one member of the group without a package.

"No. My prayer partner was Janet Underhill. I guess she must have drawn my name as well."

Everyone fell silent for a moment, thinking about the murdered woman.

"Well, it's a great pity what happened to her," Millie Fortnum declared. "I just shudder every time I think about it."

Lois Hoskins nodded. "I wouldn't have believed it, though. Josh Underhill used to come to Sunday school every now and then, and he was always such a nice boy."

"They say you can't tell about murderers," said Millie Fortnum. "Or maybe he was drunk. Being in the rescue squad, I can't tell you all 171

the awful things I've seen happen on account of drunk people."

"He didn't drink, Millie," said Mrs. Hoskins with a steely expression.

Anne Louise Barker was still staring at the tabletop Christmas tree, shining with tartan ribbons. "I felt like I ought to get her something," she said at last. "It isn't as if I forgot her."

"What did you do, Anne Louise?" asked Laura Bruce. She had been thinking how glad she was that she hadn't drawn the name of the murdered woman. Even having to choose floral stationery was better than that.

"Well, I baked some Christmas cookies, and I took them to her children. I thought if it was me, I'd want someone to look after my young'uns." She sighed. "I hope they'll be all right out there alone on that dreadful farm."

"What are they doing for Christmas?" asked Lois Hoskins.

"Well, I asked them, and the boy said they had plans. Going to relatives, I guess."

But Maggie is singing at the Christmas Eve service, thought Laura. And they don't have any close relatives. She made a mental note to check on them when the weather was better.

Dallas Stuart had just purchased a new desk calendar of lawyer quotations for the coming year, and he was busy entering his court dates and other commitments on its pristine pages. He liked to get his duties taken care of before the chaos of the holidays was upon him. Soon 172

grandchildren would be arriving, and his wife would start accepting party invitations from here to Knoxville, and his schedule would be shot until after New Year's. He always left spaces between his appointments during the early part of January to accommodate all the divorce cases that would spring up during the Christmas season. He must remember to advise his young partner, who handled the criminal cases, to leave open spaces on his schedule, too, for the assault cases and the shoplifters. Tis the season, Stuart thought sardonically.

He missed the old days, the holidays of his boyhood. Depression-era Christmases may have seemed spartan at the time, with some hard candy, an orange, and a baseball being the sum total of his gifts, but as the years passed, those days took on a luster in his mind unequaled by the affluence of later holidays. Modern holidays emphasized material things at the expense of real joy. Take his grandkids, for instance; a darling pair of children, but between his wife and his daughter-in-law, spoiled rotten. Why, at the end of Christmas day, those young'uns probably couldn't tell you all the presents they'd received, and they wouldn't play with half of them ever again. They wouldn't know what it was like to try to make one pair of shoes last until June. Times had changed in the mountains.

On his desk, the intercom buzzed, and Alva's voice interrupted his thoughts. "The Underhill boy is calling, Dallas. He wants to talk to you. Line one."

Dallas Stuart looked a little shamefaced as he 173

picked up the phone. He reckoned affluence wasn't everybody's problem, after all. "Is that you, Mark?" he said genially into the receiver. "I was just thinking about you and your sister. How are you?"

"We're fine, Mr. Stuart," said Mark Underbill. "I wanted—"

"Glad to hear it," the attorney replied. "Because I'd been meaning to give you a call myself. A couple of days ago, my wife asked me to find out if you young people had any plans for Christmas. We've got the family coming in this year, and we thought a couple more youngsters would just add to the merriment." Eleanor would give him a piece of her mind for inviting strangers home for Christmas without consulting her, but he'd get around her. He'd simply explain that the thought of those two orphans alone in that tragic house had hit him all of a sudden with more guilt than he cared to bear during the Yuletide season. She wouldn't mind really; she just didn't like domestic surprises when she'd already planned her menus.

Mark Underbill's voice broke through his reverie. "It's very kind of you to ask us, Mr. Stuart," he was saying, "but my sister and I already have plans. I was calling you about something else."

"All right." Dallas Stuart disguised his sigh of relief with a discreet cough. "What can I do for you?"

"Did my father say anything in his will about another bank account?"

Whatever the attorney had been expecting to 174

hear, it was not that. "I don't think so," he murmured. "Let me just go to the filing cabinet and get the papers. Can you hold on?" When he put the phone down, Stuart shuffled to the oak-veneer cabinet, still trying to figure out what the Underhill boy was getting at. There wasn't a lot of money in that account, but the life insurance money had been added to it by now, hadn't it? He found the file in the back of the second drawer, and went back to the phone.

"What do you mean by another account, Mark?" he asked, skimming the documents. "You mean savings bonds, or something like that?"

On the other end of the line he heard the boy take a deep breath. "My father had acquired a good deal of money in various ways while he was overseas, and that money was not reflected in the bank statements from the local branch. I wondered if there was anything in his papers about a safety deposit box or a key or anything like that?"

"Your father never mentioned anything like that to me, Mark. Are you sure you understood him correctly?"

"What about an address of a foreign bank or an account number?"

"Nothing. It's all perfectly straightforward, and there's no indication that your dad had any more money to leave than you'd expect of a retired military man. Can you tell me why you think there ought to be more?"

Mark Underhill laughed. "If you can't help me, there doesn't seem to be any point in going

into it, does there? I guess I'll have to find out for myself."

Dallas Stuart found himself listening to a dial tone. By the time he put the folder back in its proper place, he had forgotten about the Underbills, and was busy reviewing his party obligations at the end of this year's calendar.

It was a strange way to spend the Saturday before Christmas—standing on a grassy hillside next to the railroad tracks with fifty other people, most of them with kids in tow. Strictly speaking, Spencer Arrowood wasn't on duty, but he wore his uniform, anyway, under the sheepskin jacket that was keeping him warm, and he'd driven the patrol car to make his presence official. He'd never seen a fight break out at this event, but it was just as well to be prepared.

The day was as fine as you could ask for in December. The high white clouds didn't obscure the sun, and the breeze was mild, with the temperature in the low fifties. Anybody with a decent coat on would be comfortable enough. Of course, quite a few of these people wore no coats at all; that's why they were here.

One wiry old man in a red plaid jacket left the group of women and children on the hill, and sauntered down to the railroad track. He put his ear to the steel rail for a moment, then stood up, shaking his head. Not yet. The crowd let out a collective groan, but it was good-natured. They were a little tired of waiting, but they weren't going anywhere. 176

Spencer adjusted his brown Stetson, and strolled down to the track. The steel rails stretched away between the cuts in the mountain pastureland, curving out of sight at the bend where the forest began. Spencer's boots crunched on the gravel siding as he leaned out to look along the length of track facing east. All was still. He turned and waved to the crowd camped out on the hill. Some of them had brought blankets to sit on; others stood and talked, cigarettes dangling from their fingers, as shrieking blond children chased each other through the clumps of people and into the weeds.

There was a sameness to them., he thought, scanning the faces. Many of the women were overweight from a lifetime on the diet of the poor. The deep-fried and starchy foods that are both filling and cheap make pasty complexions and lumpish bodies. The men were short and gaunt, a combination of ancestral genetics and poor nutrition. Beer and cigarettes in lieu of vegetables and jogging didn't help any, either. But they were honest people, and if there was work to be had, they'd put in long hours without a murmur.

People he knew from Knoxville and from the flatlands were always saying how great the house prices were in east Tennessee, and how cheap it was to live in the mountains, but Spencer reckoned that living in the mountains cost most of those people on the hillside ten years of their lives. And maybe a future for their children. But they wouldn't leave—not for jobs or 177

love. Those that did leave sickened in exile in the ugly cities of the Midwest, pining for the hills of home. Even people who weren't poor, like himself or Dallas Stuart's young law partner, J. W. Lyon, could make more money and advance in their careers by moving elsewhere, but they continued to stay in the shadows of the mountains. Why can't we just get out of these hills? he wondered for the thousandth time. Why are we willing to sacrifice so much to live in this beautiful place? If this were the Garden of Eden, God couldn't drive us out of here with a flaming sword; we'd sneak back when the angel wasn't looking.

The sad thing was that the poverty wasn't natural to the region. The livestock business had thrived before the chestnut blight, and just to the north of Hamelin lay land that bore the richest deposits of anthracite coal in the world. You could stand by this railroad track any hour of any day you chose and watch a mile-long coal train hauling the natural resources away. The coal mines weren't locally owned, and they didn't put much back into local taxes, either. The mine owners could afford lawyers and lobbyists to see to that. Spencer had read once that ninety percent of the state of West Virginia was owned by absentee landlords.

The coal companies would be running the train today; the only one of the year that didn't haul coal. At least they made this gesture; offered a little money to the people. But maybe if things had been different politically, there wouldn't have to be a train like this one. 178

Somebody up on the hill called out to him. "Merry Christmas, Sheriff!"

Spencer grinned and waved back. "Merry Christmas, y'all!"

Most of them echoed his greeting, but a few of the men scowled and turned away. He recognized them. They were regulars in his line of work: the ones who got in more than their share of car wrecks and brawls. People who had frequent run-ins with the law were the type who held grudges; it was convenient to blame the sheriff for their misfortunes.

"The train should be along soon," Spencer called out, cupping his hands around his mouth to make himself heard. "When it does come in sight, I want all you mamas and daddys to keep the children behind this rock." He pointed to a boulder sticking out of the base of the hill, five feet back from the rails. "Those trains are big and dangerous, and I don't want any accidents spoiling everybody's holidays. Okay?"

There were solemn nods from many of the women. The children stared at him, big-eyed and silent.

"I'll stay down here to make sure everybody remembers to keep back. If anything falls in front of this boulder, you can come down and pick it up after the train is past. Understood? And remember not to be greedy. Let everybody get something. Especially the little fellers." He looked sternly at a pack of teenage boys hovering on the edge of the crowd. They pretended not to hear him.

Spencer sat down on the boulder and joined 179

the wait. Above the trees on the other side of the tracks a hawk circled lazily, eyeing the intruders. Somebody in the crowd on the hill tried to get some carol singing started, but the response was ragged, and soon died away. People wanted to be able to hear the train when it came.

A tow-headed three-year-old in a Kmart fighter pilot jacket peered up at Spencer with an expression of round-eyed solemnity. "Is that your gun?" he asked.

"Sure is, son," said Spencer with equal gravity. "I'd take it out and let you have a look at it, but guns aren't to be played with. I bet you have a toy one at home, though, don't you?" He wondered if the child was cold in that plastic jacket with the air force patches on the shoulders.

"Well, I have a wooden one. I got a labor sword, too."

"A labor sword?"

"It lights up, and makes a noise when you shoot." The little boy demonstrated the appropriate sound effect.

"A laser sword," said Spencer, sorting out the child's meaning.

"Morgan, get on back up here and quit pestering the sheriff!" Waving her arm for balance, the boy's mother perched on the side of the hill, just out of arm's reach. "Come on back here, Morgan! Do you want that train to get you?"

She didn't look more than twenty herself. Her hair was naturally blond and her fine-boned face was much too fair for the black eyeliner 180

and mascara she used. It gave her features a hardness that did not belong there; underneath the cheap makeup she was probably quite pretty. She wore a fake-fur jacket and tight jeans, but she still managed to look maternal in her concern for her straying child.